Tag: young professional

If the only tool you have is a hammer…

I was being shown around one of my project sites. This one was near Cambridge. A developer wanted to build a luxury hotel here.

My tour guide was the project’s arborist. For weeks, he and his assistant had been painstakingly mapping and tagging the hundreds (thousands?) of trees on this woodland site.

‘That’s a field maple tree,’ he enthused. ‘Squirrels love them. That tree’s been chewed to the core so it’ll have to come down.’

As we hiked to the back of the site, he pointed out the trees of interest.

‘What’s that?’ I asked. There was a long, squat black fence bisecting an open grassy glad.

‘The newt fence,’ the arborist said. ‘The ecologist set that up. It’s part of the newt strategy, to help relocate the great crested newts to the new ponds out back.’

The great crested newt is famous for holding up development all over the English countryside. Although a highly protected species, in the eyes of developers, it is exasperatingly common.

‘And here are the ponds,’ the arborist announced. ‘Oh look! There are some newts now.’

‘I see. It looks like the ponds have worked, then,’ I suggested.

‘Yes, they’ve been very successful.’ The arborist grimaced. ‘The ecologist was so pleased with himself when these ponds got put in. The day after they were constructed, I showed up on site. “Look!” the ecologist said when he saw me. I was aghast. When they dug up the pond, they had ripped out all the roots of those lovely beech trees you see there! I was furious. I wanted to grab some newts and nail them to a tree! How would he like that? Eh?’

Hahaha…

Here, then, is a reminder about the blinkers we wear as professional specialists. I am the same — to me, everything is always about sustainability.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

What I do for a living

I am often asked what my job is. I don’t really enjoy answering this question because I feel like I’m selling something that I myself don’t understand clearly. I’m not even sure why I feel like I need to ‘sell’ my job as an being interesting or worthwhile. Yet, I do this anyway.

I will try to explain my job here and see if I can at least clear up in my own head what I ‘do for a living’.

My job title is ‘sustainability consultant’. Sustainability is a huge field, covering:

  • international development and poverty alleviation
  • renewable energy
  • community and civil engagement
  • corporate responsibility
  • environmental management
  • efficient manufacturing and other processes
  • ‘green’ buildings
  • environmental and welfare economics
  • climate change and carbon management
  • toxicology and land remediation
  • safe product design
  • public outreach

And so on.

Obviously, no one person can work in all areas of sustainability. My work particularly covers sustainability related to cities and urban systems — buildings, transport, energy supply, water supply, waste treatment, logistics, schooling… I also foray into job creation, habitat management, equity and access… Very peripherally, I also look at questions of public participation in decision making (e.g. voting), literacy, religious inclusion, and so on.

I generally work in developed countries, or at least the wealthier parts of developing countries (e.g. cities in China and the Middle East).

Most of my work is in large multidisciplinary projects. Typically, about 10 or 15 teams around the company (or from outside the company) are working together to design a new town or rebuild part of an existing city. My team’s job involves:

  • Working with the client and the teams to come up with indicators for sustainability;
  • Setting targets for the various indicators (e.g. There must be at least two jobs for every dwelling);
  • Collecting data from teams about their designs;
  • Integrating the data so that we can analyse the sustainability of the entire project (we often use models to do this quantitatively);
  • Giving results back to teams, highlighting problems with their data and alerting teams to opportunities to work together for better strategies;
  • Producing a report to give to the client

My role is often to manage the finances of the project, go to meetings with the project managers, present to the client, and coordinate the report. I don’t often do the modelling — there are others more capable of that than me.

That’s most of my job. Occasionally, I do projects that aren’t multidisciplinary. That’s when a client comes to our team directly and asks for strategic sustainability advice, like helping them develop a climate change policy.

I like my job. I like it because I get to look at the big picture. I like working in teams and meeting new people.

There are things I don’t like. Between teams, there are sometimes personality clashes and political issues about who does what work. Sometimes, I feel frustrated because I doubt our advice will actually be implemented in real life. At my most frustrated times, I wonder if I’m just a paper pusher, generating work for myself. What’s the point in producing a report that no one ever reads?

Now that I think about it, I guess that even if no one pays attention to a particular report I write, because I’ve learned from doing it, it will help me be more effective in the next project I do. That’s a happy thought, isn’t it!

Eventuate

I sent an email to a project manager outside my team, copying in my boss and others working on this project.

Ten seconds later, both my managers are guffawing and pointing at me.

‘Eventuate?!’ they laughed. ‘Joan, you’ve got to stop making up words! This isn’t the first time…’

‘Wha–?’ I started.

They were in hysterics because I had written: ‘The team believes this is the cautious approach because they cannot be sure that the political push towards a low emissions zone will eventuate.’

Other teamates soon joined my managers in mocking me.

‘It’s a real word!’ I protested. ‘I’ll show you!’

Alarmed, I typed ‘eventuate’ into my Dictionary.com search engine, and it came up:

e·ven·tu·ate
–verb (used without object), -at·ed, -at·ing.

  1. to have issue; result.
  2. to be the issue or outcome; come about.

[Origin: 1780–90; Americanism; < L éventu(s) event + -ate1]

‘Oh!’ I said, chagrined. ‘Oh dear. It’s an Americanism! I didn’t know.’

Luckily, the person I had emailed was visiting from San Francisco. She, at least, would understand my message.

I have isshoos

Last week was exciting. I spent Monday and Tuesday at Bristol to meet other engineers (and scientists and sociologists) that ‘think in systems’. I was able to confirm that I, too, ‘think in systems’. This means that I zoom out and see the big picture of how bits of a project or team interact with other bits in unexpected ways. (example and again)

For various reasons, there were a couple of non-systems thinkers at some of the sessions and I could tell that they thought we were talking gobbledy gook and mumbo jumbo. I’ll admit, sometimes things get so zoomed out and abstract that things get almost mystical. To a typical engineer, we systems engineers are hippies.

One thing that stuck out in my head from the conference was that while trying to make conversation with an older (retired) engineer, he looked at me patronisingly and made fun of me for saying ‘isshoo’ (issue). I think he was implying the correct pronunciation is ‘issyoo’. Horrid person.

Being a good underling

In my recent performance appraisal, my manager said that he valued the fact that he trust me to complete tasks without me demanding much of his time.

Whenever I have to make a decision on how to approach a job, I weigh up two options:

  1. Ask for direction from my manager
  2. Have a go

I lean heavily towards Option 2. If I have the faintest idea of what could be done, I will have a stab at putting something together in the hope of minimising fuss. I’ll also try to polish it up before taking to my manager(s) for a sense check. Often, good presentation can help people see the potential in the work. I’ve had some of my craziest ideas sail through review without comment because, when put into a professional format, it looks like the obvious approach to take.

Of course, sometimes I get things wrong and have to redo work. In the long run, though, I have found that the benefits of being brave and having a go are worth the risk of stuffing up occasionally.

Saving your boss time and fuss could be worth more than you think.

Homework

Somehow, I had to finish a big report before the end of the week. Everyone in the office was tense. It was going to be a difficult sprint to Friday.

The only way I could make it to the deadline, I decided, was to find an extra working day before Friday. This is why, before going to sleep, I set my phone alarm for 3:30 AM. I could get an extra three hours of work in.

The phone woke me up. I pulled myself out of my warm bed and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen in darkness. Desperate times call for desperate measures so I made two cups of coffee. I carried the coffee upstairs, trying to make as little sounds as I could. My housemates were asleep, like all the other sane people in London.

Setting the coffees down on the chest of drawers, I booted up the laptop and opened my report files. I finally rubbed the sleep from my eyes and saw in the corner of my laptop screen — 1:12 AM.

What?!

I picked up my phone.

‘1 new message’, it flashed.

I had been sent a message at 1 AM.

I sighed and shut the laptop lid. Ignoring the two cups of hot coffee, I crawled back under the covers. I’ll have cold coffee to drink in two hours.

Monbiot tells us: ‘Choose Life’

George Monbiot is an environmental and political journalist, who writes for The Guardian. My values and beliefs align closely to his, although he is more radical than I am.

He has some careers advice on his blog, which warns me (and you):

Even intelligent, purposeful people almost immediately lose their way in such [corporate/institutional] worlds. They become so busy meeting the needs of their employers and surviving in the hostile world into which they have been thrust that they have no time or energy left to develop the career path they really wanted to follow. And you have to develop it: it simply will not happen by itself. The idea, so often voiced by new recruits who are uncomfortable with the choice they have made, that they can reform the institution they join from within, so that it reflects their own beliefs and moral codes, is simply laughable. For all the recent guff about “corporate social responsibility”, corporations respond to the market and to the demands of their shareholders, not to the consciences of their employees. Even the chief executive can make a difference only at the margins: the moment her conscience interferes with the non-negotiable purpose of her company – turning a profit and boosting the value of its shares – she’s out.

I had a session with the careers advisor this morning. Both he and I agreed that becoming a chartered engineer should be my key priority. However, Monbiot says, “…be wary of following the careers advice your college gives you.”

Nor does this mean that you shouldn’t take “work experience” in the institutions whose worldview you do not accept if it’s available, and where there are essential skills you feel you can learn at their expense. But you must retain absolute clarity about the limits of this exercise, and you must leave the moment you’ve learnt what you need to learn (usually after just a few months) and the firm starts taking more from you than you are taking from it. How many times have I heard students about to start work for a corporation claim that they will spend just two or three years earning the money they need, then leave and pursue the career of their choice? How many times have I caught up with those people several years later, to discover that they have acquired a lifestyle, a car and a mortgage to match their salary, and that their initial ideals have faded to the haziest of memories, which they now dismiss as a post-adolescent fantasy? How many times have I watched free people give up their freedom?

Oh dear.

Being brave

It was the end of the formal part of the Friday luncheon. The speaker was thanked and everyone was invited to stay for drinks.

I knew what ‘drinks’ meant. ‘Drinks’ is a chance to get up and network with people. Have you ‘networked’ before? Sometimes I call it ‘schmoozing‘. You talk to people and somewhere in your mind (it could be at the back or the front), you are conscious of making a good impression because this person could be important to you one day.

It’s scary. If you’re nervous about cold-calling, of introducing yourself to random people, of breaking into conversations that have begun without you, then networking is scary. I think it must be even scarier when you’re a junior engineer and there is no compelling reason for the others in the room to speak to you.

I stood up with my glass and looked around. I sipped. Oh. I was looking at the white table cloth again. I forced myself to look up again and caught the eye of my big boss. Quickly, I averted my eyes. That was the easy option, talking to someone I already knew. My boss probably knew that too. I wasn’t going to burden him with my conversation.

As I hovered by my table, I thought about leaving. Others had. It would stop this feeling of wretched stupidity and awkwardness.

Okay, that’s it.

I turned and walked past other tables, past my boss, past the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the sunset over the Yarra River, and approached two men sitting near the front.

“Hello! Can I join you?” I smiled.

“Sure,” they said.

I pulled over a chair and sat down.

Suitably male

At Friday’s luncheon, I found my name on Table 6 and sat myself next to Ben. Ben works for the management services business group, which is in a different building to where I work. So even though we had worked for the same company for a year, this was the first time we had met. I knew the rest of his team mates, though, and they were all women.

“So Ben,” I said, “Are you the only guy in your team?”

“Joan,” he replied immediately, “it’s been like that my whole life.” I found out that Ben used to be an occupational therapist. “At uni, all the occupational therapy students were girls, so when I started working, I worked with females too. Now that I do communications and sociology, they’re all girls again! I must have the kind of skill areas that are traditionally female-dominated.”

I laughed. “That’s… a weird sitatuion, considering you work for an engineering company.”

“That’s right. There are plenty of men around — I’m just not working with them! Don’t get me wrong, though. It’s all good.”

“Well, I’m an engineer. I’ve always worked with guys and as you probably know, when you get to know people, it’s not like ‘He’s a guy’ or ‘She’s a girl’. They’re just people. Except when they start talking about shoes, right? Then they’re girls.”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “I have trouble relating when they start talking about shoes.”

“So, then, do you do something suitably violent and male when you’re not working?” I asked.

Ben brightened. “I do!”

Football, right? I thought. That, or karate.

“Yeah, I do kung fu.”

Bingo.

I am the luckiest of people

On Monday morning, we drove up to Shepparton. I was packed and ready for a week away. Late in the morning, David called.

“Joan? I really need some support for a meeting tomorrow morning. I’m running a risk workshop for a water retailer. Can you come with me?”

“Hmm, David, I’m in Shepparton at the moment. Isn’t the meeting in Melbourne?”

“I talked to Paul and he said that as long as you can physically make it back here, then you could help me out. Joan, please, do you think you can do it?”

I heard the worry in his voice. “Okay, David. I’ll be there. I’ll figure it out.”

I put my phone down and took a deep breath. How was I going to do this? Jamie needed the car in Shepparton… I would have to catch the bus to Murchison then a train to Melbourne.

Fortuitously, I found out that my boss in Shepparton, Vanessa, was driving to Melbourne to attend the Environment Industry Dinner. This $145-per-head event is the biggest event on the environment calendar. Generally, only important people get to go. Vanessa was going as a guest of my company. She agreed to give me a lift back to Melbourne that evening.

As we approached the city, Vanessa asked, “Do you want me to drop you off at Flinders Street station?”

“No, I think it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. It’s close to peak hour. Just drive me to the MCG, where the dinner is, and I’ll catch a train from Richmond station. It’s nearby.”

When we got to the MCG, Vanessa offered to let me out but there were cars behind us, waiting to enter the carpark so I gestured her to drive on. “I can find my way back once you’ve parked.”

Getting to the underground carpark was like running a maze. In the end, I loaded myself up with my rolling luggage, handbag and backpack, and followed Vanessa to the lift. She said, “There should be a way out from the ground floor.”

Unfortunately, at this time of night, all the exits were locked. We spent 20 minutes searching for a way out. “Maybe I should just go with you to the dinner and I can get a staff member to show me an exit,” I suggested.

At last, we found a turnstile that allowed people to exit but not come back. What a drama! Finally! I squeezed through, dragging my luggage behind me. Waving goodbye to Vanessa, I was about to orientate myself towards Richmond Station when a woman approached.

“Excuse me, can you find a way in? I’m trying to get to the Environment Dinner.”

“Sorry,” I replied. “I just found a way out and I’m leaving… Oh my god! Jan!”

“Joan!” she gasped. I hadn’t seen Jan for three or four years! As a student, I worked for her when she was the Sustainability Manager at one of the Big Four banks. Only a month ago, I had tracked her down again and emailed her, saying that I was working in Shepparton but when I came back, we could catch up for coffee.

“This is amazing, Joan! What a coincidence!” Jan marvelled. “You’re here for the Environment Dinner, of course?”

“Actually, I just got a lift back from Shepparton with Vanessa.” Vanessa waved from behind the glass doors. “I’m on my way to Richmond Station.”

“Well, would you like to come to the dinner?” Jan asked. “We have a spare spot. Literally two hours ago, one of the people who was meant to be on our table realised he had double booked himself and pulled out. I’ve called so many people but no one could make it. It looked like we were going to have an empty seat at our table.”

I broke into a huge smile. “I’d love to come!”

I knew that Jan now worked for my company’s biggest client. This meant that, at no cost to me, I would be sharing a table with the managing directors and board members of my company’s biggest client at an exclusive event — all on a night I was supposed to be in Shepparton!

I put my luggage into the cloak room. My boss was surprised but pleased to see me. I got a tour of the MCG. I ate delicious organic food. I drank organic champagne. I met important people. Important people met me. I had an awesome time.